WHY can’t people see it?!?
AAAGGGHHH!!!I’m sorry, but this is going to be just another long rant on the subject, prompted by reading Walter Pincus’s story in Sunday’s Post (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/21/AR2005052100474_pf.html). Although he may not have been the one who decided to move it from Page 1 to 26, and although there are some strong statements buried in it (like
“many U.S. intelligence analysts were internally questioning almost every major piece of prewar intelligence about Hussein's alleged weapons programs”), it was nevertheless a milquetoast piece detailing how some prewar findings “worried” some analysts. It reads like a damn personal interest piece!
Yet it is SO DAMNABLY OBVIOUS to anyone who paid attention that the Bush administration clearly ignored contrary evidence and slanted what evidence there was to support their contention that Iraq had WMDs. For starters, there’s this:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/they_knew_0802/And this:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/19/lies/These two articles are the two best synopses I’ve found detailing the facts that the Bush administration knew that their case for Iraqi WMDs was much shakier than they were publicly saying, and that they wanted to go to war with Iraq no matter what the evidence said. I’d recommend that anyone widely circulate these two articles.
But IT’S JUST COMMON SENSE, DAMN IT!! Imagine that you are in the White House, and your administration is claiming that you need to initiate an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation based on your contention that they have WMDs. Your two linchpins for the nuclear case are this: they have tried to obtain uranium from Africa, and they have imported aluminum tubes “only suitable” for uranium enrichment. Imagine that the IAEA, the world’s expert on the subject (who are on the ground in Iraq at your urging) have directly contradicted you. They have said that the case for uranium is based on forged documents, and that the aluminum tubes are most likely for conventional mortar rockets and “not directly suitable” for uranium enrichment. Several newspaper accounts report this, and it is all a matter of public record.
Now remember, you are about to launch a pre-emptive war based on pre-empting this very threat. Do you bother to go back and check your claims? Do you find out that your own intelligence agencies have repeatedly warned you that the uranium claim was unreliable (to the point of calling and e-mailing the NSC, calls and e-mails which Condoleeza Rice does not recall getting)? Do you discover that they sent an expert to Africa who made the same conclusions about the uranium deal? Do you even do the 10-minute Google search that it took the IAEA to determine that the documents could not have been authentic? Do you think twice at all when you see that in the National Intelligence Estimate on the subject, your best experts on nuclear weapons technology (Dept. of Energy), as well as the State Department, agree with the IAEA’s claims?
Or do you simply say, when confronted with the fact that the IAEA has concluded that Iraq does NOT have a nuclear weapons program,
“I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong” and
“We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons” (Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press, March 16, 2003;
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm).
These aren’t just minor points in a larger argument. They are specific points you’re repeatedly bringing up in speeches to make the case for war to the American people, Congress, and the world. They are the two key pieces of evidence backing your claims of the threat of a “mushroom cloud”.
One would think you’d want to be sure, right? I don’t CARE if your CIA chief tells you it’s a “slam dunk” case. If you’re the president, wouldn’t you say to him:
“Yeah, but how come the IAEA says these documents are forgeries? And how come the Dept. of Energy and State Department say the aluminum tubes are NOT for uranium enrichment?” Or do you just leave decisions of war and peace up to low-level intelligence operatives, without personally reviewing at least your key claims and their bases?
This is just on the subject of alleged nuclear weapons (perhaps the main public motivation for war). Nearly every other point the administration made to support their case for an unprecedented pre-emptive war was publicly debated by United Nations Inspectors on the ground in Iraq, elements in our own and other countries’ intelligence communities, and various news reports.
Again, one would think you’d want to be sure, right? Instead, they just stuck to their guns about Iraqi WMDs and initiated an unprecedented war of choice, a war meant to pre-empt an attack from these alleged WMDs. Yet each and every claim of Iraqi WMDs was proven dead wrong.
The only two possible explanations are:(A)
They KNEW their case for Iraqi WMDs was weak at best. Despite this,
they LIED to convince Congress and the American people that war was necessary.
(B) They were so
UTTERLY INCOMPETENT as to not even see or investigate the multitude of conflicting claims and evidence. They simply took what evidence/claims agreed with their policy, and ignored or discounted the rest. The entire administration was “intellectually incurious”, to the point of initiating a war of choice because they couldn't be bothered to see if that choice was really necessary.
These are the ONLY explanations. Neither of them are good, and both of them worthy of at least impeachment. I personally believe (A), because the kind of rank incompetence it would take for (B) to be true is simply not plausible. The second article above also points to this explanation.
People, we were taken into a major war, by choice, because some people either WANTED that war no matter what, or made the most INCOMPETENT “miscalculation’ in the history of our country. This is the most important issue of our time, and the one everyone should be shouting from the hilltops. It’s more important that whether or not any election was stolen, because while I’m aware that Bush’s election made Iraq possible, the lies that led to the Iraq War were so incredibly OBVIOUS that it is easily demonstrated.
Lies or Incompetence. Lies or Incompetence. Lies or Incompetence. Repeat ad infinitum. 
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